IowaHomeBrewer
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2015
- Messages
- 58
- Reaction score
- 12
In total, I've been brewing about 2 years. Adding up all the times i've started/stopped. I've never had a bad day of brewing. That all ends on one fateful day in September.
It all started on Thursday. Long read, you won't get any of your time back so just click the back button on your browser.
I'm trying to educate myself on hop impacts, so I've been doing a few experiments. I have a grain bill, yeast, and bittering hop that I stick to. I just change out the flavor / aroma hop so i can get a good idea of what each one does so that I can design my own IPA recipe. Kind of like a SmASH, but not really. Same concept.
I already did a Citra, most recently kegged was Centennial. This week i was going to do El Dorado.
The bittering hop I'm using is Magnum, and I've never had a problem getting it. It is always overstocked. Of course when I go to the store, they are out of Magnum pellets, so I get the cones thinking "whats the worst that could happen?".
Trying to get ahead of the game, I did my Starter on Friday night, WYeast 1098. This morning I popped it in the fridge to help the yeast crash, and couldn't help but notice how small of a yeast cake there was. Then it hit me when I looked at my notes.. I only put one ounce of DME, not 100 MG of DME. I have no idea what I was thinking at the time.
Fast forward to the brewing. Everything is going great, love the smell of the el dorados. Hitting my temps, everything looks good. Boil is done, cooling everything off and I pull a sample for a gravity reading.
My grain bill is 14 lbs of 2 row and 1 lb of crystal for a 5 gallon batch. My hydrometer reading says 1.03. I dump out my sample and fill with water, sure enough my hydrometer is broken (how the **** does a hydrometer break??).
Ok, no big deal. It is broken, so what. Well, kind of a big deal since I know that I underpitched my yeast due to starter fiasco, gravity readings are going to be important.
I just tell myself I'll give it 2 full weeks before dry hopping, and then i'll pull a hydrometer reading, and do the math to make sure its done. If its supposed to be 1.08 and it read as a 1.03, I'll just take the 5/100ths of a point in mind during final reading.
I turn the ball valve on my kettle to drain into my fermenter. Nothing happens. Sure enough, those ****ing cones are clogging my valve. I get out my racking cane and do that. 60 minutes later, after constantly removing blockage, I finally get it drained. Pitch my yeast, throw it into the ferm chamber. Time to clean.
First, I dumped the wort remnants into my utility sink. Clog in the sink drain. 20 minutes later sink is empty. I realize that my valve is completely jammed up. I have to disassemble the quick disconnect and entire valve to get the hops cleaned out.
Do a nice thorough rinse to get rid of debree, then throw some cleaner in there, fill the kettle up and turn the heating element on to let it sit at 170 for about an hour. Turn my pump on.
Clean up the rest of the gear and put it in its rightful place. I have about 30 minutes until I need to whipe down my kettle, so I think I'll go have one of my newly carbonated IPAs.
Wrong.
I take one step, and realize that I'm standing in about an inch of water. WTF?? Then I realize that my utility sink drains into the floor drain in the basement, which is now backed up because of the god damned hop cones. An hour later of digging in disgusting filthy water, I finally get it cleaned up and get the hops out of there.
My brew day normally takes 4 hours (cleanup included). Today it took 9 hours. All because of ****ing cones.
I will never, for any reason, buy cones again as long as I live. I'd rather not make wort than make wort with cones.
/end rant.
It all started on Thursday. Long read, you won't get any of your time back so just click the back button on your browser.
I'm trying to educate myself on hop impacts, so I've been doing a few experiments. I have a grain bill, yeast, and bittering hop that I stick to. I just change out the flavor / aroma hop so i can get a good idea of what each one does so that I can design my own IPA recipe. Kind of like a SmASH, but not really. Same concept.
I already did a Citra, most recently kegged was Centennial. This week i was going to do El Dorado.
The bittering hop I'm using is Magnum, and I've never had a problem getting it. It is always overstocked. Of course when I go to the store, they are out of Magnum pellets, so I get the cones thinking "whats the worst that could happen?".
Trying to get ahead of the game, I did my Starter on Friday night, WYeast 1098. This morning I popped it in the fridge to help the yeast crash, and couldn't help but notice how small of a yeast cake there was. Then it hit me when I looked at my notes.. I only put one ounce of DME, not 100 MG of DME. I have no idea what I was thinking at the time.
Fast forward to the brewing. Everything is going great, love the smell of the el dorados. Hitting my temps, everything looks good. Boil is done, cooling everything off and I pull a sample for a gravity reading.
My grain bill is 14 lbs of 2 row and 1 lb of crystal for a 5 gallon batch. My hydrometer reading says 1.03. I dump out my sample and fill with water, sure enough my hydrometer is broken (how the **** does a hydrometer break??).
Ok, no big deal. It is broken, so what. Well, kind of a big deal since I know that I underpitched my yeast due to starter fiasco, gravity readings are going to be important.
I just tell myself I'll give it 2 full weeks before dry hopping, and then i'll pull a hydrometer reading, and do the math to make sure its done. If its supposed to be 1.08 and it read as a 1.03, I'll just take the 5/100ths of a point in mind during final reading.
I turn the ball valve on my kettle to drain into my fermenter. Nothing happens. Sure enough, those ****ing cones are clogging my valve. I get out my racking cane and do that. 60 minutes later, after constantly removing blockage, I finally get it drained. Pitch my yeast, throw it into the ferm chamber. Time to clean.
First, I dumped the wort remnants into my utility sink. Clog in the sink drain. 20 minutes later sink is empty. I realize that my valve is completely jammed up. I have to disassemble the quick disconnect and entire valve to get the hops cleaned out.
Do a nice thorough rinse to get rid of debree, then throw some cleaner in there, fill the kettle up and turn the heating element on to let it sit at 170 for about an hour. Turn my pump on.
Clean up the rest of the gear and put it in its rightful place. I have about 30 minutes until I need to whipe down my kettle, so I think I'll go have one of my newly carbonated IPAs.
Wrong.
I take one step, and realize that I'm standing in about an inch of water. WTF?? Then I realize that my utility sink drains into the floor drain in the basement, which is now backed up because of the god damned hop cones. An hour later of digging in disgusting filthy water, I finally get it cleaned up and get the hops out of there.
My brew day normally takes 4 hours (cleanup included). Today it took 9 hours. All because of ****ing cones.
I will never, for any reason, buy cones again as long as I live. I'd rather not make wort than make wort with cones.
/end rant.